Monday Scramble: The FedEx Cup of love

Welcome to the Monday Scramble, feeling at least $11.352984 million richer just for watching those ol’ FedExies (our new nickname for the whole shebang because we feel weird calling them “playoffs”).

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With all those different victory scenarios that NBC floated to viewers Sunday, there were two that really revved our golf carts:

• If Steve Stricker finished in third and Tiger Woods in fourth – they would have had gone to a playoff for the $10 million prize.

• If Tiger cursed on the 12th tee 11.7 seconds before Phil Mickelson fist-bumped an 82-year-old man on his walk to the 13th green as two rare birds, an Olive-sided Flycatcher and Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, performed a loop-the-loop over the East Lake clubhouse at the same time Stewart Cink posted a Tweet that included the words “onomatopoeia” and “sheepdog” – Tim Finchem’s left foot would have won the FedEx Cup by two-thirds of a point.

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For the record, we’re just as sick of talking about the current FedEx Cup format as anyone. Yet once again the excitement level surrounding its conclusion – the Playoffs, not the event – was comparable to Marc Leishman’s par on No. 8 Sunday. (He didn’t chip in or anything did he?) Vijay Singh blowing off the media last year was more entertaining.

Mickelson started to make a “joke” with NBC after his round that spoke to the idea that the Tour Championship winner should also end up being the ultimate champion, which makes about as much sense to us as wearing your seat belt.

You can take as many photos as you want of Woods and Mickelson standing next to each other and brag about the stars finally lining up. But this isn’t the Presidents Cup, and two winners aren’t better than one.

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Seven things that happened Sunday when Tiger and Phil both won titles simultaneously:

• “I [heart] FedEx Cup” T-shirts officially went on sale

• The Tour Championship trophy filed for divorce from the FedEx Cup

• The Ryder Cup shook its head

• MIT canceled classes for the week

• Everyone on the planet suddenly became ambidextrous

• Obi Wan Kenobi announced that balance had been brought to The Force

• Calculators voted to change their named to “Calcavecchias” so they wouldn’t have to work as hard next year

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Four reasons we love Padraig Harrington:

• He’s Irish (and we love Guinness so that makes us his countrymen.)

• He’s nicer than Mickelson’s short game and has more Resolve than a carpet cleaner’s closet.

• He’s got that spine-chilling stare which reminds of that scene in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” when Judge Doom gets drilled by a steamroller and his cartoon eyes pop out.

• And he made one heck of a point this week about noise and golf – and basketball. While answering questions from the media about playing with Tiger and the resulting hectic atmosphere, Harrington said it was overrated and that he “always found it easier to play in a noisy environment than a quiet one.”

“You’d be amazed, when there’s a lot going on you see nothing…” Harrington said.

“You know, if there was a brass band playing behind the tee box, it wouldn’t put you off. But if there was a guy standing there on his own, nobody else out on a really quiet day, you could hear him from 100 yards away if he was on his own talking to himself, obviously.”

We all know Paddy talks to himself, but he’s got a point, especially when it comes to one of our American-bred sports.

“I’m going to have my little rant here,” he said. “I could never understand at the basketball games why everybody makes noise when they’re throwing free throws. If everybody kept quiet, it would put the guy under a lot of pressure, and if you got one guy down to make noise, it would really put him off.

“Some college has got to start that. Everybody goes quiet, and then – you don’t even need anybody to make noise. There’s a lot more pressure than when everybody is waving those and cheering.”

Forty extra FedEx Cup points for Paddy. Forty-million points for the first school to put this into action. And free “I [heart] FedEx Cup” T-shirts.